Did I tell you about what we won in AcaDeca? I must have, but somewhere else.
The awards ceremony was pretty fun, and a has a story worthy of its own separate post, but I don't have the time. We did very well though! We improved our rank from last year by 22 spots, going from rank 52 to 34! This earned us the "Most Improved Award". Here's a list of other awards we won:
Kevin Kim - Bronze in Interview
Adrian Martinez - Gold in Interview, Silver in Speech (Correct me if im wrong lol)
Lucero Luna - Bronze in Speech and Interview
Me - Top Score on the team [not as big a deal as everyone else's awards] and Honorable Mention in Language and Literature [I ranked 7th in the district and only got that. haha.]
Evelyn Barkhodarian - Honorable Mention in Math [wtf she ranked 5th in the district! and only honorably mention???]
...But that's the old team, and we have a new team now.
Yup, new term, new classes... and the classes have been going well. Its been pretty uneventful. But today was fun! Or maybe I sort of made it fun.
Brandon and I were trying to get all our papers in order to sign up for P.E. classes at GCC. But it was a quest!
This is going to be a long story, so if you want, skip to the bottom and read the lesson you should learn from this....
During 4th period, we walked downstairs to speak to Barcenas about whether we could get high school p.e. credit for college p.e. courses, because we were missing p.e. credits because of AcaDeca. ...But he was in a meeting, so we couldn't speak to him!
"If only we had Lucero or Evelyn," Brandon said, "They could just walk in there and we wouldn't have to wait." Lucero and Evelyn are "well connected" students at school. Agreeing with him, I decided we should go find them, because we thought the application for GCC was due today.
We concluded they should be in Leadership, so we trudged across campus in the dreadful 68 degree heat to see them in the Leadership room, but they weren't there!
"You haven't seen them either?", Mr. Stirpe asked us, skeptical. "I haven't seen them all day. Supposedly they went to Mr. Ortiz's room to help out, but we sent someone there to get them and they weren't there."
Brandon and I nodded, concluding out next destination was Mr. Ortiz's room. But as we walked out he said, "Well I guess they can't say they were with Mr. Driscoll helping with AcaDeca, eh?"
We realized that now we really had to find Lucero and Evelyn-- to warn them not to use AcaDeca as an excuse for skipping class!
With even more graven a purpose, we set out on our mission.
We trudged to the farthest reaches of the campus, practically to Vons! We walked into Mr. Ortiz's room, and found no one but Mr. Ortiz.
"Lucero and Evelyn??" He said, in his trademark awesome manner of speaking, "Sure they were here... Over an hour ago."
"Do you know where they might have went?" I asked, hopeful.
"Hm. Now that you mention it," he said, "Gamer said something about going to work and offering them a ride home."
From this we realized that they had gone home. Defeated, we headed back to the office to see if Barcenas was out of his meeting yet, and suprisingly, he was.
We asked Barcenas our question, and he replied, "No idea. You're gonna have to speak to the Assistant Principal."
We groaned, and walked across the hall to the other office, and requested to speak with the Assistant Principal. We asked the receptionist, a weary looking elderly woman, who replied in a thick accent, "Does she know you're going to see her?"
"Uhm, no.." Brandon replied.
"Did she summon you?" She answered.
"No actually, we came here on our own accord. You see, we needed to talk to her about--"
"Did you make an appointment?" She interuppted.
"Well, no." Brandon said.
"Who's your counselor?" She asked.
"Ms. Carbone." Brandon replied.
"You can't see her without an appointment sorry. If you want you can fill out a request to see her."
Why the hell did she need to know who our counselor was? I thought.
So we walked out, practically giving up because filling out the papers would take too much time.
And thats when we found Lucero and Evelyn heading our way! It turns out they were grading papers in Kemple's class. Our papers. We flagged them down, and begged them to talk to the Assistant Principal for us. Shrugging, Lucero casually walked straight into the Assistant Principal's office and talked to her for us.
Quickly, Lucero reemerged from the room and said, "Nope you can't do that."
"What!??" Brandon and I exclaimed. "You'll have to just take P.E. over the summer." She said.
"Defeated!" I groaned, and we walked into the hall way. Brandon warned Evelyn and Lucero about Stirpe, and they were able to get out of trouble. But Brandon and I were now in deeper trouble--
"Fuck!! I don't wanna take P.E. over the summer!!" Brandon said.
After talking with Lucero and Evelyn for a while, Brandon asked,"So what's our next move??" I paused, thinking. "Well," I said, "Let's talk to Sam or Noemi first and see how they did it."
Sam and Noemi were the ones who gave us the idea of taking classes at GCC.
Sadly, we couldn't seem to find them on campus! Brandon had to catch his bus, so I was left alone to walk home, but on the way I wouldn't realize it, but I was about to get very lucky.
I stopped to talk to Lucero and Evelyn, who were waiting for a ride home.
As a side note, there was a very cute girl standing next to them. It seemed as if they knew each other. I was about to ask Lucero and Evelyn who she was, when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I spot Sam walking home!
I say a rushed goodbye to Lucero and Evelyn, and run to Sam, telling her about Brandon and I's predicament.
"Oh? She said," In her always far off and aloof way, "I can't help you, sorry. I'm not taking the classes for credit."
"Oh" I said, defeated once more. "...But Noemi is! You can talk to her!" Sam said.
"Where can I find her?" I asked, urgently. Sam took out her phone and called her. After a quick conversation she hung up the phone.
"She's in Journalism right now!" Said Sam. Realizing lady luck had given me a break, I quickly headed back toward the main building to find her. On the way however, I saw that mystery girl again, waiting by herself. Lucero and Evelyn had gone home.
I wondered if I should talk to her, but I was worried if I did, Noemi might leave...
I had to choose which was more important to me---
so I ran over to the mystery girl!
....Just kidding. I went to go see Noemi! After all, I couldn't even talked to her if I'd wanted to! I made a wise decision though, because Noemi was just finishing up and about to leave. After finding her, I told her about what the Assistant Principal had told Brandon and I, and she explained that the Assistnat Principal had been wrong, and it IS possible to transfer credit.
Now I had to get the counselor's signature. I headed, once again across campus to the FARTHER reaches of campus, nicknamed the Produce Corner of Vons because of how remote it was, to the Magnet Office. But to my dismay, the counselor was in a parent conference! Judith, who worked in the magnet office told me that it would take a long time for her to finish, and it might just be best to come back tomorrow... but I knew there was no tomorrow... [dun dun dun]
So Noemi and I decided to go to her counselor, in the hopes I could get it signed by her, but she had gone home. I told Noemi that I would try to see my counselor again, and that she could go home, and apologized for taking up so much of her time. She said it was okay, and headed home.
So now my only hope rested on whether or not my counselor was done with her meeting...
...and she was!
I had my application signed, and the school's seal affixed to the paper. But now I had one last thing I wanted to do-- see if that girl was still there.
I ran up to the corner of the school, and looked to see if she was still there. I saw someone sitting by the stairs, thinking it could have been her, but it was a long walk. And I knew I wouldn't have said anything anyway.
I headed home, relieved, and drank 4 cups of cold water =]
What should you learn from all this?
1. Spontaneity makes for an exciting life, even from the most mundane or stressful tasks.
2. It's easy to make life interesting if you put in the effort.
3. Never do things last minute.
